Continuation Part 5: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Bill Williams]

Your inability or unwillingness to answer is duly noted.

Would you explain how analysis on clothes would confirm or deny Knox's story?
No?

The problem is that you overlook the implicit premises which you embed your questions; you should acknowledge them before, that would allow you to properly formulize any further question.

And would you explain what is your evidence that clothes were never collected? (that is another implicit premise, which you do't care of verifying).

Again, I note for the second time your inability or unwillingness to answer.

The question is, with no a priori's except for I had assumed that the PLE was trying to solve a crime...

Knox claimed she wore those clothes the night of Nov 1st. Those clothes (whether or not she actually DID wear those clothes is another question) lay on her bed, right where she said she put them, to lay behind police-lines for weeks.

My question is: why did not the police collect them and process them as evidence? That's all. My a priori is that the PLE were trying to solve a crime - and I read somewhere that at some point they suspected Amanda Knox had welded a knife in a brutal attack on a true innocent.

Why did the PLE not collect those clothes? It's not really complicated, Machiavelli..... really, it's not.

You're not going to pull out the Masonic conspiracy again are you, the one you pulled out to explain Judge Hellmann's acquittal?

You are embarrassing yourself, Mr. Machiavelli. I am grateful you are willing to catalogue these embarrassments here.

 

[anglolawyer]

The above is obviously not in the 01:45 and 05:45, it is instead implied by the 01:45 and 05:45 statements.

You have to still better focus and digest the concepts of suspect. She was suspected (even in the informal sense) but of covering the murderer not of being the murderer (not her specifically), this even during her 05:45.

Believe me, I think there is no case to bring to the EC.

I believe you. I also believe you are wrong. The ECHR has repeatedly stated that the right to a fair trial includes the right to legal counsel at all stages, including investigation. Whatever the law of Italy may say, that of the ECHR overrides it.

I don't see a good reason why the various things you say are implied are not in the two statements. The real reason they aren't there is to preserve the fiction that she was not a suspect. You have mistakenly admitted that she was (contrary to the ILE which still perversely maintain the contrary). Much follows from this. And it makes no difference to her right to a lawyer etc that they only suspected her of covering for someone else. That is still a serious crime and she should have been afforded all her rights in relation to it.

 

[NancyS]

The SC already threw out this reasoning (brought by Hellmann) as manifestly illogical.

That's just avoiding the question - why is it manifestly illogical?

 

[Bill Williams]

Would you explain how analysis on clothes would confirm or deny Knox's story?
No?

The whole point of collecting the clothes is to examine that! One does not reach a conclusion about what the clothes could or couldn't confirm or deny while you're standing over them deciding whether to collect them or not?

Unless you're in Italy, trying to frame someone. It's like Mignini ordering that Meredith's body temperature NOT be taken. Heave's to betsy, you certainly wouldn't want to know when the poor girl died! Not in a murder investigation.

Not collecting the clothes keeps options open in how someone can be framed.

It is truly amazing, Machiavelli that you're arguing like this. This is the old Machiavelli we know and love!

 

[anglolawyer]

But you can't forget the law and forget tactis, because this is not how the legal things work, especially in Italy.
You cannot just demand that beaurocratic paths coincide with straight common sense as perceived by a lay citizen.
You want to know. But who are "you"? You need to be a player inside the game, and you need to follow the rules.
Massei - not the prosecution - decided to not test the stain; the court determined that - at that stage of the trial - the full knowledge of that detail of the scenario would be irrelevant to the outcome of the trial. And the court cannot spend time to search irrelevant aspects of the truth. It would have been irrelevat to their judgement if it was Guede's or Sollecito. They aready fund evidence beyond reasonable doubt that Sollecito was guilty - and that trial was only about Sollecito and Knox, not about others.
Massei's decision might be objectionable, you may disagree with it. However, Hellmann-Zanetti DID agree with it because they refused to test the semen stain too.

Mach, I am a lawyer. A real one. Unlike you and your friends in other places, I am not anonymously hiding behind a screen name. I know about tactics and law and don't need lectures about either.

The investigation of a murder involves gathering evidence. The stain is evidence. Not testing it has nothing to do with Massei nor with anything else that happened in 2008 and 2009. It has to do with events of November 2007. Your explanation of the failure to test it has something to do with the need to 'preserve it'. This strikes me as bull ****.

 

[Skind]

This sounds completely wrong to me.

That's because it is. FMS is a symptom of a serious underlying and preceeding clinically significant condition, although it can be idopathic.

It is not the only origin of false memories.

But this is irrelevant.

Internalised false confessions do not require that the person form a false memory. All that is required is that the person genuinely believes that their imaginings must be true, even if they have a contrary memory. The person believes their true memory must be a false one.

Is it this ability to challenge ones own memory that puts you at risk of trusting imaginings over memory. As Mach pointed out, Knox was more than willing to challenge her own memory.

 

[Bill Williams]

Thanks, but that makes no sense. We (placing ourselves in the shoes of investigators, or examining magistrates) want to know what happened. Forget the defence. Let's test the stain and see what it is. Forget the law. Forget tactics. Just test it. It might be the boyfriend, it might be Raffaele (bingo!) or it might be Rudy (no staged sexual assault!) or it might be something other than semen and entirely benign. Manoeuvres with the defence are not reasons for not finding out just as they were not reasons for not testing the knife or the bra clasp or anything else that was tested.

Plus, I am no expert, but I understand this idea of not testing in order to preserve anything to be unsound (not to mention ironic given all the stuff the cops destroyed!)

If the issue here is the alleged semen stain.... Massei covers the rationale (well, HIS rationale!) for Stefanoni not testing the stain for it's composition or owner. He said it was a choice between that and identifying the shoe pattern in the stain, as someone stepped in it. IIRC it was Rudy's shoe.

Massei leaves unexplained, really, why the stain cold not be tested after for ownership and composition.

Machiavelli's fall back argument is that Raffaele's defence team did not want it tested either. Meaning to prepare for the trials in 2009 and 2011. But the point, the REAL point, is why on the very first day the stain was not tested by the PLE in Nov 2007 (as you say AL) even before Raffaele was allowed to have a lawyer.

Machiavelli must think that readers of this forum are morons - with what he's trying to claim.

 

[Briars]

Did he testify when they weren't there? He knew to the minute when he first saw them because he wore a watch.

He was reading and smoking. He would smoke, turn the page, butt out his smoke, read a little and all the while look up and check his surroundings.

How long do you think someone on heroin would read without looking up?

It's truly an embarrassing joke that he is used only for when they want. He never testified at what times they were absent.

Why would someone bother to bring a paper daily if not to read it? I find your assumption of what he could read and retain offensive. The local Umbrian paper wrote a kind and thoughtful tribute to Curatolo who they knew personally.A man who did take an interest in their paper . It gives a far greater and more intelligent assessment than anything Nancy ,you ,or Rose came up with. Curatolo was reading, not sitting there for the purpose of watching the defendants. We all people watch to some degree but have no idea when people come or go unless our interest is above the norm and we are doing little else other than watching them.

 

[Bill Williams]

Re: the alleged semen stain on the pillow. Massei reports in his motivations report that the defence brought this up on Dec 4, 2009, just before the first guilty verdict:

At the hearing of December 4 the Defence for Sollecito concluded the rebuttals, submitting a memorandum evidencing that on the site of the inspection of May 25, 2009, on the pillowcase of the pillow found in the victim’s room some stains had been found with the ‚crimescope‛ that could have been spermatic in nature and that these had not been the object of any genetic analysis. In relation to this contention, various questions were raised as to the necessity of testing relative to these stains.

The pillow contained other evidence that Rudy was associated with it:

The handprint found on a pillow in the room, on which the lifeless corpse of Meredith was found placed, turned out to have been made by Rudy Guede; (further p. 166) This pillow was in fact found under the young lady’s buttocks and the handprint, from Rudy Guede’s hand and stained with the victim’s blood, shows that Meredith had already been
struck and was bleeding;

But then to the chase.... this is the reason why Massei found it acceptable NOT to test to see if it is semen. Even beofre testing it to see whose it is and what it's made of, Massei does this Machiavellian like thing, of pre-thinking the evidence. Even if it IS semen, and even if it DOES identify who it belongs to, there is no time stamp on semen... so if it's Rudy's Massei is contemplating that Rudy could have left it there at another time other than the murder... similarly with Raffaele if it turned out to be his - although, if it had been Raffaele's I'm sure Massei would have adopted different reasoning.

In this regard, what has been previously observed on the subject is called to mind; with specific reference to the stains found on the pillowcase, particular mention of which was made by Sollecito’s defence *team+ during the trial and in the related illustrative memorandum, the following should be noted: even if a genetic investigation established the spermatic nature of these stains, such an investigation, as a rule, would not allow these stains to be dated and, in particular, it would not be possible to establish that they had been deposited on the night on which Meredith was killed. It having furthermore been established that Meredith had an active sexual life and at times had intercourse in her own room (cf. on this point the statements of her boyfriend Giacomo Silenzi) such an investigation, besides not being of a strictly necessary nature due to the impossibility of dating [i.e. establishing the date] (cf. what was elucidated on this aspect by the genetic experts), might also yield an entirely irrelevant outcome even for establishing the spermatic nature of those very stains and seems to be, therefore, a purely explorative activity, [which] is not permitted at this stage of the proceedings because it is lacking in the requirement for absolute necessity which was, on the contrary, requested.

Yet for some reason, Massei assumes that Amanda Knox's "biological material" DOES have a date stamp, because when Meredith's blood is found mixed with it (leaving aside the collection method of wide swabs taken), it is assumed that it could not have fallen unto old samples of Amanda's DNA - afterall, Amanda lived there!

This is the case against Knox and Sollecito. I fear that the ISC is setting up the Florence court to adopt similar reasoning.

 

[Grinder]

The above is obviously not in the 01:45 and 05:45, it is instead implied by the 01:45 and 05:45 statements.

Mach the issue is what De Felice meant when he said that she buckled and told us what we knew to be correct. He didn't say implied things. She named Patrick as the murderer and said she was in the cottage because she had let him after sending I'll see you soon text.

You can't make sense of his statement without acknowledging that they thought Patrick was involved in the murder with Amanda. She signed statements to that effect and those statements were not correct.

They knew her shower-mop story was false, they knew that she had inside knowledge of the murder scene and she knew things that she was hiding, they knew that she staged a burglary and cleaned the crime scene, they knew she was offering a false testimony in oder to protect the murderer.

What is false about the shower-mop story?

She had inside knowledge of the murder scene because she lived there.

She said nothing of the staged burglary.

There is no evidence of a cleanup now nor was there then.

Even if she was "known" only to have done what you allege they knew she was then a suspect of crimes even if they didn't include being the murderer.

You can't escape that she was a suspect in every sense and that they had it wrong yet she told them exactly what they believed. It is clear to every fair-minded person that they led her into the statements.

 

[anglolawyer]

snip
You can't escape that she was a suspect in every sense and that they had it wrong yet she told them exactly what they believed. It is clear to every fair-minded person that they led her into the statements.

Mach has already blown it by admitting she was strongly suspected and even detailing what she was suspected of. OMG. I hope he retains his anonymity because that may not go down well back home. Mach may soon need to get the hell outta there. He will be very welcome here. I can get him a place in the witness protection scheme pending the ECHR hearing.

 

[bri1]

This means they came to the rational conclusion they were false, not that they retracted it.
The most famous case of false memory is probably Piaget, who had himself a false memory of an attempted kidnapping from his childhood, which never happened.
Jean Piaget came to the conclusion that his memory was false and researched the topic, only after - when he was since many years into his profession - his nanny told him about having falesly told him the story; he had forgot of having being told by the nanny - hypnosys can remove the consiousness of being "told" something even, in adults. But it was impossible to remove the visual memory itself. It can be re-labeled as false on external rational convincement (like scenes you remember from a movie or from a dream: you just know it's a movie) but it cannot be 'removed' or be made vague.

Cite?
All of our mental content is interpreted by us, and categorised as dream, imagining, memory etc. These interpretations are usually pretty straightforward and are done on the basis of phenomenological experience. Yes, rational argument can cause someone to doubt the categorisation, but so can reexamination of the phenomenal qualities of the mental content. Amanda, in every statement given under the pernicious influence of ILE , described the 'memory' in terms not usually associated with memory, so it is clear.that they were never fully and completely internalised, and she subsequently realised that the phenomenal qualities did not feel like memory, but rather imaginings, which is, after all, what the police asked her to do ( contrary to section 68).

 

[Grinder]

Why would someone bother to bring a paper daily if not to read it? I find your assumption of what he could read and retain offensive. The local Umbrian paper wrote a kind and thoughtful tribute to Curatolo who they knew personally.A man who did take an interest in their paper . It gives a far greater and more intelligent assessment than anything Nancy ,you ,or Rose came up with. Curatolo was reading, not sitting there for the purpose of watching the defendants. We all people watch to some degree but have no idea when people come or go unless our interest is above the norm and we are doing little else other than watching them.

I'm sorry that my characterization of Curatolo the junkie offensive. I find using a clearly troubled human for nefarious purposes disgusting.

He was reading a paper sitting on a park bench smoking cigarettes while loaded on smack. The local paper is the employer of the cub reporter that did a story and then convinced Curatolo to come forward a year later.

Yes he had no idea, period. He was interviewed by the police in the next few days after the murder yet had nothing to report. He had access to papers and therefore should have known that the murder had occurred right in his back yard yet he didn't come forward.

One year later he comes forward but gets the description of the day wrong. He remembers buses that weren't running and people in costumes they weren't wearing.

He is later arrested for an outstanding heroin dealing charge and taken to trial. In that trial he expresses his being nonplussed by the proceedings.

When questioned by Hellmann, he was asked how he could so certain about the exact time. He pulled back his sleeve and showed the court his watch. He knew to the minute the time. Do you think that fits with your "We all people watch to some degree but have no idea when people come or go unless our interest is above the norm and we are doing little else other than watching them"

Curatolo is the only person that remembers seeing two people for a period of two hours. He changed the story when his "just before midnight" didn't work with the adjusted later TOD.

Curatolo is alleged to have also testified in multiple cases. If those cases were anything like this one the bogus meter goes off the chart.

Curatolo is a total joke as a witness. He was a junkie that conveniently died in prison where Mignini put him away from the prying media that would have exposed him even more.

ETA - why do you assume he bought the paper? He probably found in the trash at that time of night. It is wonderful that he took an interest in their paper

 

[Antony]

Did I just read this correctly?

Machiavelli has just confirmed that Knox and Sollecito were suspects GOING INTO THEIR LATE NOV 5 INTERROGATIONS!

Machiavelli, you need to get this info to the Italian Supreme Court. It's not too late to overturn the ISC's 26 March rulings!

This was a frame-up from the beginning, Mach admits it! Knox and Sollecito needed lawyers and as suspects, Mach admits they were, they were not afforded lawyers, translators (until later) and no recordings of interrogations.

Thank you Machiavelli. I would never have figured this out on my own!

You had better stop, Machiavelli. You, yourself have rights. Please do not say anything more spontaneously. You need a lawyer! If you want to, JREF can act only as if a notary.

Yes, and kudos to Grinder for coaxing this admission out of Machiavelli.

But of course, it's been obvious from the beginning that the "witness, not suspect" meme is unsupportable. The regular PGP claim is that Raff withdrew Amanda's alibi during his own interrogation, which was when the police called her in to the interrogation room. This obviously can't be squared with her not becoming a suspect there and then.

 

[anglolawyer]

Yes, and kudos to Grinder for coaxing this admission out of Machiavelli.

snip

Kudos to whom?

 

[Grinder]

Yes, and kudos to Grinder for coaxing this admission out of Machiavelli.

But of course, it's been obvious from the beginning that the "witness, not suspect" meme is unsupportable. The regular PGP claim is that Raff withdrew Amanda's alibi during his own interrogation, which was when the police called her in to the interrogation room. This obviously can't be squared with her not becoming a suspect there and then.

Thanks for the props

I think that even more significant in this corner of the internet is that Mach can't deal with De Felice's comments. To me this is so crucial because the case is primarily based on the statements that night. Because of those statements it can be said by the PGP that Amanda and Raf changed their stories. Obviously, changing of stories makes one look guilty.

The calumnia conviction has a nd will be used against Amanda forever. Hellmann really screwed up by not throwing it out and anyone that didn't see it at the time really doesn't get this case.

Amanda should plead poverty and have the Italians give her attorneys. I'll bet excellent attorneys would jump at the chance. Her support groups should independently fund expert witnesses on heroin addicts memory reliability, DNA, footprints, luminol and TOD.

Hellmann has given her a leg up on fighting her conviction should it come. He basically said that she will not receive the appeal de novo that the Italian system mandates. The Italian justice system will be put through the ringer if it gets to extradition.

 

[NancyS]

Why would someone bother to bring a paper daily if not to read it? I find your assumption of what he could read and retain offensive. The local Umbrian paper wrote a kind and thoughtful tribute to Curatolo who they knew personally.A man who did take an interest in their paper . It gives a far greater and more intelligent assessment than anything Nancy ,you ,or Rose came up with. Curatolo was reading, not sitting there for the purpose of watching the defendants. We all people watch to some degree but have no idea when people come or go unless our interest is above the norm and we are doing little else other than watching them.

I can easily believe he sat and read the paper - and I can even believe he was a pleasant man. I like lots of my opiate dependent patients and many have had interesting and colourful lives and many are incredibly polite and personable (I prefer them to alcohloics on the whole). However, the one thing they are not is reliable and they are often dishonest and always easily manipulated. And yes we do all people watch, however, it is a rare person that will remember details about people they have never met, but have only seen at night and from a distance, for days or even years later - taking heroin makes this even less likely.

Maybe he did see some a young couple, can he really be that sure it was Amanda and Raffaele? I know that I don't have that kind of memory

 

[Antony]

Kudos to whom?

Wasn't it in response to this from Grinder?

I've always said that guilty or innocent of the murder, the interrogation's results shouldn't have been calumnia because they forced her to say what they knew to be correct.

Mach explanation of the De Felice saying his famous buckled and told what was correct statement is that he said she told us some things we knew were correct.

Mach, perhaps you could explain what things they knew were correct in her statements.

 

[Grinder]

Kudos to whom?

I think that was Grinder

Originally Posted by Grinder
(...)
Mach explanation of the De Felice saying his famous buckled and told what was correct statement is that he said she told us some things we knew were correct.

Mach, perhaps you could explain what things they knew were correct in her statements.

Mach - They knew her shower-mop story was false, they knew that she had inside knowledge of the murder scene and she knew things that she was hiding, they knew that she staged a burglary and cleaned the crime scene, they knew she was offering a false testimony in oder to protect the murderer.

 

[Briars]

I'm sorry that my characterization of Curatolo the junkie offensive. I find using a clearly troubled human for nefarious purposes disgusting.

He was reading a paper sitting on a park bench smoking cigarettes while loaded on smack. The local paper is the employer of the cub reporter that did a story and then convinced Curatolo to come forward a year later.

Yes he had no idea, period. He was interviewed by the police in the next few days after the murder yet had nothing to report. He had access to papers and therefore should have known that the murder had occurred right in his back yard yet he didn't come forward.

One year later he comes forward but gets the description of the day wrong. He remembers buses that weren't running and people in costumes they weren't wearing.

He is later arrested for an outstanding heroin dealing charge and taken to trial. In that trial he expresses his being nonplussed by the proceedings.

When questioned by Hellmann, he was asked how he could so certain about the exact time. He pulled back his sleeve and showed the court his watch. He knew to the minute the time. Do you think that fits with your "We all people watch to some degree but have no idea when people come or go unless our interest is above the norm and we are doing little else other than watching them"

Curatolo is the only person that remembers seeing two people for a period of two hours. He changed the story when his "just before midnight" didn't work with the adjusted later TOD.

Curatolo is alleged to have also testified in multiple cases. If those cases were anything like this one the bogus meter goes off the chart.

Curatolo is a total joke as a witness. He was a junkie that conveniently died in prison where Mignini put him away from the prying media that would have exposed him even more.

ETA - why do you assume he bought the paper? He probably found in the trash at that time of night. It is wonderful that he took an interest in their paper

There is some confusion as to whether there were No buses that night ,or just fewer. People were still in costume apparently. Do you have evidence that Mignini put Curatolo in prison to protect his own interest? Or is this just the conspiracy argument. I'm sure the paper was distributed freely so the 'bum' didn't have to rummage in the garbage. Your quick judgement reminds me of the debate as to whether mentally challenged witnesses can ever be be believed or we should always question their ability to understand what is truth or fiction. Different argument I know but you cannot simply discredit people without careful consideration. Fortunately the SC gets it and Curatolo is not going to be just waved away.